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Pre-code through and through...

Customer Rating:
I love pre-codes, and this one was very good. But it could've been better. Think of this plot with Bette Davis leading as Molly in it and think some more. With Davis, it coud've been something amazing. I only saw Lee Tracy in supporting roles before this movie, and was delighted to see him leading. He was GREAT!!! This movie seemed like a B-movie, but it was very good. Ann Dvorak has done better, and I liked her in Three On a Match, which is really, REALLY great!!! I hope to see more of the Forbidden Hollywood Collection on DVD, especially such wonderful pre-coeds as this one, Three On a Match, Ilicit, and Red Dust, my favorite pre-code ever.

Gangsters and Babies and Underthings- Oh My!

Customer Rating:
The Strange Love of Molly Louvain is a film about a girl (Ann Dvorak) who seems to be on her way up in life. She is adored by all the men around her where she works and she has a wealthy boyfriend who might ask her to marry him. However, the man leaves Molly and she's on her own, pregnant with his child. Molly gets mixed up with a gangster (Leslie Fenton) who gets her and an innocent friend of hers (Richard Cromwell) in a jam with the police. In hiding, she meets a reporter (Lee Tracy) who she falls in love with.

Ann Dvorak is beautiful as Molly Louvain. It takes a while to get used to her as a blonde, but with lighter hair, her beautiful eyes are more noticeable. She has a smooth voice and is very expressive.

Richard Cromwell is sweet and sincere in his part. His character is cute but strong, and incredibly likeable.

Lee Tracy is incredibly natural in this film. He is wonderfully playful and comical at times and no-nonsense at others. He and Dvorak have great chemistry together.

This film is part of the Forbidden Hollywood series for several reasons. The most obvious is that a woman is depicted as having a child out of wedlock. Also, the gangster elements are more raw than in later films. This film also displays Dvorak in her underwear.

The drawback to The Strange Love of Molly Louvain is the ending. Only part of the story is concluded; the rest is left unanswered. This leaves for a bit of an unsettled feeling.

MARTHA IVER'S BIG SISTER.

Customer Rating:
A tough, steamy pre-code film which is fascinating but hugely melodramatic. Ann Dvorak plays title role: a hotel cigar counter person who gets herself in trouble by having an affair with rich man. Molly then leaves town with a would-be petty thief, Nicky Grant. She tires of him and takes her little girl to a woman who will care for her while she finds work as a dance hostess. Molly meets an old friend who worked as a bellboy at the hotel: he's a student now and they talk over old times. But as soon as they are outside, Grant reappears....Twisty and not terribly convincing plot-wise, because she is - to put it bluntly - dense. Dvorak, however was always a competent actress and she keeps the viewer watching. As Scottie Cornell, Lee Tracy is pretty good: he gets her in the end (oh, boy!- goody gum drops!) The working title of this little potboiler from Warners was THE TINSEL LADY (!) which was based on an unpublished play called TINSEL GIRL by Maurine Dallas Watkins. Dvorak quickly rose from a hoofer in early talkies into an interesting leading actress. While never quite a star, her performances are always worth watching. Born Ann McKim in 1912, Dvorak had her last role of any consequence in a fair 1950 film entitled OUR VERY OWN - in which she played the peroxided natural mother of adoptee Ann Blyth.

Too Many Bad Choices

Customer Rating:
Ann Dvorak stars as Molly Louvain, a woman who aspires to a better life and doesn't want to turn out like the mother who abandoned her. However, she attracts all the men she meets, and in the space of seventy minutes, she goes through four of them! One of them is particularly bad news, leaving her on the run from the police, and another leaves her a single mother. Like most Warner Brothers films from this time period, it's a tough little film. Ann Dvorak is good as Molly, although it's hard to feel sorry for a character that makes so many bad choices. Lee Tracy has a lot of charisma as man #4, perhaps the only man that really understands her. The film is well directed by Michael Curtiz, and it has some great dialogue. But it's not the kind of film that really involves you, since none of the characters evoke enough sympathy (except Molly right at the end). It was probably cutting edge in its day, with its depiction of an unwed mother, but it doesn't have the same kind of impact today.